Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog

Ironically the office has got a more positive vibe now that our commissioning engineer has been “moved on to Baltimore”.  Since I arrived she has been a source of frustration for both the contractor and us, regularly winding the subbies up by telling them they are incompetent (which is true) but not offering any constructive comments.  This has caused such bad blood that she is number 3 on the Client’s Representative Top Ten List of Things He Hates (the Contractor is not even on this list!).  So after much wrangling the boss has moved her on (which was a mutual decision) before the project goes backwards.  On her leaving we sorted through the stuff she had left and found items dating back to February that were months over due which even the contractor had forgotten about.

Over the last months I have taken it upon my self to try and resolve issues that have been dragging on a while because no one else can get a result (the poisoned chalice).  For my avid followers this has so far amounted to the floor drain  and the faulty pump 17 (more on that later).  Now I have picked up another topic which is Temporary Building Maintenance during construction.  I gathered together the customer reps and we thrashed out the issues concerning maintenance.  Aside from the equipment that is due commissioning there is no record of maintenance on anything else including the fire pumps.  There is also concern that what maintenance there is happening is not good enough especially when water from the boiler has 10x too much iron in it and cooling towers have excessive bacterial growth.  I took the time to review Operation and Maintenance Manuals for all the big items (boilers, chillers, cooling towers etc) and then tried to check what the non commissioning items only to discover that the submission for theses items has never been sent to us.  Armed with some good facts and examples I had a meeting with the contractor who was very receptive (they like dealing with Army guys more) who admitted the document was missing and that they could improve by changing procedures and including more details.  As I suspected there was no way they were not doing the maintenance but they were not always including the details because this document had not been written to tie it all in.  So months of whinging  dealt with in a 2 hour meeting.  I have now got to go through the building equipment list and identify every item that needs maintenance. Should take me 6 weeks!  We also have over 2000 QA issues to address.  So many of these are legacy from guys who have left the project that they are just sitting there with no one taking ownership.  I will be sorting them out next week and apportioning responsibility where necessary.  Some of these are over 2 years old and have been dealt with but are still not signed off.

I also visited the steam generation plant on site to see how it compared to our boiler setup.  This is pretty big facility providing steam for all other buildings on site.  Our interest comes form the fact that the plant has a continuous analysis system that checks the water quality constantly and can notify the engineer by phone or wifi if an issue occurs that the machine cannot sort or even order more chemicals.  The equipment is all provided free by the vendor (although the installation isn’t) who set this up and enhance boiler lifetime considerably. 

Above.  Where the magic happens

Below. One of four big boilers

Our current boiler system relies on little old men taking readings every hour for 8 hours, chucking in a coffee can of chemicals when ever he thinks things are out of kilter.  This seems very old fashioned and imprecise and the water test result imply it doesn’t work.  However this is what the customer wants! I will have to change their minds.

Pump 17 continues to delay the commissioning of the cooling system so I used this as the basis for my TMR to try and get resolution.  As mentioned previously the pumps are too big and need better control through VFDs but without analysing the situation it is difficult to get any support.  It turns out the motors are nearly 200% oversize even including the need for expansion.  We have referred the matter back to the design team in Baltimore because the designer is not conceding on this.  Interestingly the Design firm recently acquired the firm that employs all our QA guys…….We still have no answer on whether fire dampers should be tested with the system running.  We have gone to the engineer at Ft Dettrick to find out what they did and why.  Rain last Friday managed to flood the sump with the fuel return tank in it.  This is inside the generator building and is meant to be dry so it was a bit of a shock to see the watering pouring in through the pipe line from the flooded sump in the fuel storage area.  Even more of a shock for the King Snake stuck down there!  It turns out a bung to block this pipe had been left off because no one thought the other sump would flood but it did because the lid was badly fitted.  QA issue 2001…..

In Harrisburg the fun and games continue.  The Contractor still has no idea how the steel beams are going to be moved on the roof.  The most recent idea has been to cut all the beams in to 3 pieces so that they can fit on the quad bike trailer.  This will cost them even more money and slow down the job even more.  On that note we have still not received an updated schedule due 1 July.  Office engineering are drafting a letter saying that as no schedule has been received it is obvious that the contractor considers the project is running on time so there will be no come back if the project runs over time.  This might get there attention especially as they are running 9 months late.  That said even after a directed letter was sent, telling them to employ a new Safety and Health Officer in 2 weeks, it has been stiffly ignored for 6 weeks.  When challenged the response was that they were having trouble hiring someone.  It turns out that they were trying to poach the SHO off the HQ project next door but he would rather eat his own hands than work for these clowns! The High Bay Drain Fiasco continues.  There are actually serious discussions as to whether there is a need for the over flows especially as we had 9 inches fall last Friday and there were no problems.

The HQ building is coming on well and they are starting to pour the floors.  I enclose a photo of this possible project for my successors (C and E&M).

The steel will all be up by next May but there will be plenty going on especially as that is when the Mechanical equipment will start going in. 

And in other news….

It is a bad time to be depressed in DC with a shooting and self immolation not to mention furloughs.  The furloughs did not impact us because our funds come from last years budget but we had guys from the district drafted in to keep them employed on our budget. 

The Orioles finished 3rd in the League so did not qualify for the wild card place in the finals, the Ravens have had a pretty ropey season winning 3 and losing 3 with not much hope of another Super Bowl this year but the State College Terrapins (Terps) Football team is doing well with 4 wins and one spanking by Florida State 63-0.  This equals the biggest loss in the history of the college competition but that is what happens when your quarterbacks are all injured in the game.

Halloween is rapidly approaching and the amount people spend over here is staggering.  They really go to town and where we are is so popular for trick or treating, people bus in from around the county.  We have bough 4kg of stickys already but we have been warned that might not be enough!

We also took part in another great US tradition of going to visit a time share at an outdoor pursuit centre.  These places are very well set up for doing nearly everything both winter and summer so we were nearly tempted to stump up $10,000 for 2 weeks a year for life (transferable to resorts all round the world). However when we declined and they asked if $5,000 was OK we decided that was too necky and collected our voucher for a free 3 day holiday and left.

Warrick also found a car for me.